Explainer: What is a Passing Score on IAPP Exams?

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UPDATED: November 2025

As you begin to prepare for any of the exams administered by the IAPP (formerly known as the International Association of Privacy Professionals)—whether the AIGP, CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPP/C, CIPM, or CIPT exam—you might wonder how many questions you need to get right to obtain certification.

While the question of “what is a passing score” appears straightforward, the answer defies an equally straightforward answer. This is because IAPP exams are graded on a weighted scale, including a psychometric analysis. In this article we attempt to break down what it takes to pass an IAPP exam, dispel myths, and provide practical data—backed up by actual exam scores.

What Are the Basics?

To obtain any IAPP certification, you must pass a qualifying exam. All but one of the exams that the IAPP administers contain 90 questions that must be completed within two and a half hours. The exception is the Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional (AIGP) certification exam, which contains 100 questions. If you are sitting for the AIGP exam, you are given three hours to complete your test.

For all exams, a passing score is 300 or above. But what is required to obtain a score of 300 is variable. The most detailed guidance about how IAPP exams are graded that comes directly from the IAPP can be found in its IAPP Certification Candidate Handbook. Let us take a closer look at some of the key points that IAPP makes in that handbook.

“All core IAPP exams are scored on a scale from 100–500 with a passing score as 300 or above. The passing score for each exam is determined by a rigorous process of beta testing, psychometric analysis and review by a[n] exam development board of experts. This passing score is then set to 300 on our scale.”

This is a fancy way for the IAPP to say that it recognizes that certain exams—depending on what questions appear on them—may be more difficult than others. Therefore, the number of specific questions that you need to get right in order to pass will change depending on the specific questions that appear on your exam.

The end goal is to receive a score of 300 or more. Although 300 is directly between a 100 and 500 score, this does not mean that getting 50% of the questions right means that you have passed the exam. Nor does it represent getting 60% of the questions correct. We will return to this in more detail below.

“Candidates should not attempt to calculate their passing score by averaging the percentages they receive in their score report.”

As you are probably aware, for each certification that the IAPP administers, it publishes a Body of Knowledge and Exam Blueprint. This document will set forth the relative number of questions (given as a range) that students should expect to see for each competency identified as being tested. Put differently, the IAPP will ask more questions about certain subject matter that it considers important, while asking fewer questions about less important subject matter. That’s expected.

What the above quote is meant to convey is that students should not average their percentage score on each subject matter domain in an attempt to understand their overall score. There is no correlation between those numbers.

“The number of scored and unscored questions on the exam is listed on the designation’s page on the IAPP website.”

A final point that IAPP makes is that some of its questions will not be included in the actual graded portion of the exam.

Elsewhere, the IAPP notes that the number of scored questions is either 75 or 85, depending on the exam. The CIPM, CIPT, and all CIPP exams have 75 scored questions (out of 90 total), while the AIGP exam has 85 scored questions (out of 100 total).

The remaining unscored questions are used by the IAPP as field test questions that may, at some point in the future, become graded questions on future exams.

Are There Any Other Insights?

You’re probably asking yourself at this point, is that it? Is that really all the guidance that the IAPP provides about scoring? Well, yes and no. Based on the current version of the Candidate Handbook, there is very little guidance. But going back to past versions of the Candidate Handbook provides some additional insights.

Below, we look further at some guidance from past versions of the Candidate Handbook—specifically, v.4.0 that is still available here.

“Each question is worth 1 point and is scored as correct or incorrect”

By stating that each question is worth only one point, the IAPP indicates that all questions are weighted equally (except for unscored field questions, of course). This does not mean, however, that all tests are weighted equally. In other words, some forms of the exam will be considered harder than others and thus weighted differently. Likewise, it is important to keep in mind when preparing for your exam, that this does not mean all topics and concepts on the exam are weighted equally. Rather, the Body of Knowledge and Exam Blueprint for each exam sets forth the approximate number of questions that cover each topic or concept—and therefore, the relative weight that each topic or concept will have.

Additionally, because each question is multiple choice and is scored as correct or incorrect, this means that for each question there is only one right answer. Some questions may be framed as asking “what is most likely” or “what is most accurate” or “what best describes” a certain concept. While these types of questions imply that more than one answer may be “likely” or “accurate” or describe the thing in question, the qualifier of “most” or “best” means that the IAPP wants a specific answer.

Recently, the IAPP introduced a new type of multiple-choice question, where there is more than one correct answer. In other words, the IAPP will ask a question and provide five or six potential answers. For this form of question, a student must provide all correct answers (and no wrong answers) to have that question marked as correct; no partial credit is given.

“Unanswered questions are considered incorrect, and there is no additional penalty for incorrect answers.”

What the above sentence means is crystal clear—NEVER LEAVE AN ANSWER BLANK. EVER. It is always better to guess on a question that you do not know the answer to than to leave it blank.

“Passing a certification exam does not require 100 percent mastery. . . . [P]assing scores range between 65 and 80 percent correct, depending on the program and exam form.”

First, the good news. IAPP does not expect perfection.

The bad news, however, is that getting 80% of the questions on your exam correct is a high bar. At the same time, the above guidance indicates that if you get 80% of your scored questions correct, you are effectively guaranteed to receive a passing score of 300 or more.

Another important wrinkle here is the recognition by IAPP that there are different “exam forms.” This is done for many reasons. For one, if a student does not receive a passing score and has to retake the exam, IAPP does not want to give them the exact same exam the second time around. Second, by varying the form of the exam, IAPP helps prevent would-be cheaters from obtaining the exact exam questions from those who have previously taken the exam.

What is the Absolute Minimum Number of Questions That Students Can Get Correct and Still Pass?

Combining some of the above information, we can do a little math to determine the bare minimum number of questions that a student needs to get right to have a chance of passing the exam.

Note that this analysis does NOT mean that if you get this number of questions correct, that you will pass. Rather, it means that if you get below this number of questions correct, you are guaranteed to fail the exam.

Additionally, this analysis relies upon the assumption that students did not get any of the unscored practice questions correct. It also rounds up to the nearest whole number (see point above re: “Each question is worth 1 point”)

For Exams That Have the “Hardest” Form

For Exams That Have the “Easiest” Form

What is the Minimum Number of Questions Correct That Will Guarantee a Student Will Pass?

Similar to the above analysis, we can combine some information from IAPP with some basic arithmetic to determine how many questions students need to get correct to guarantee that they will receive a passing grade.

Note that unlike the analysis above, the below analysis assumes that students got all of the unscored practice questions correct. Again, this analysis rounds up to the nearest whole number.

Another important caveat is that students will never know whether they got an “easier” or “harder” form of the exam. Therefore, to answer the question of what will guarantee a passing grade, we have assumed that the easiest form of the exam is being taken (i.e., the one that requires the highest number of correct questions to pass).

In short, aim for 75 questions correct to guarantee yourself a passing score for most exams, and aim for 83 questions correct for the AIGP exam.

Some Practical Examples – CIPP/US

Below are some examples of actual exam scores, as shown on official score reports, that have been drawn from multiple sources across the internet. Scores are organized from highest to lowest score. Note, however, that some of these scores were from prior versions of the exam, where specific domains were weighted differently from the current weighting, which emphasizes State Privacy Laws more heavily.

Example 1 –

Example 2 –

Example 3 –

Example 4 –

Example 5 –

Example 6 –

Example 7 –

Example 8 –

Some Practical Examples – CIPP/E

Example 1 –

Example 2 –

Example 3 –

Example 4 –

Example 5 –

Example 6 –

Example 7 –

Some Practical Examples – CIPM

Example 1 –

Example 2 –

Example 3 –

Example 4 –

Example 5 –

Example 6 –

Some Practical Examples – AIGP

Example 1 –

Example 2 –

Example 3 –

Does Privacy Bootcamp Offer a Pass Guarantee?

Yes, Privacy Bootcamp offers a pass guarantee. We are so confident that our courses will help you obtain IAPP certification, we guarantee it! If you complete 100% of one of our courses and for some reason do not pass the actual exam, we will refund the entire cost of our course. Less than 3% of our students have ever requested a refund—indicating an industry leading pass rate.

Full terms of the Privacy Bootcamp Guarantee can be found at here.

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